Join the Conversation

S.F. strives to stay on top of enrollment

Jon Walker
10:16 a.m. CDT August 17, 2014

Rroni Basha (left) and Edin Cardona, both Roosevelt High seniors with the Link Crew, give incoming freshmen a tour of the school last week in Sioux Falls. Tim Hazlett, Roosevelt principal, says 600 freshmen will start this fall at the high school, which has the highest enrollment in the state.
(Photo: Joe Ahlquist / Argus Leader)

"When we look at the numbers projected for the Sioux Falls School District, I can tell you, maybe a future superintendent, a future school board may see that need someday, but certainly today we don't see one," Homan said last week.

Kent Alberty, the school board president, sees it differently.

"This is just me, but when we look at enrollment projections over the next 10 years, I think we're going to have to look at a fourth traditional high school," Alberty said. "We're not a long way from that."

"As we grow northwest, I believe that's the area we're going to see houses go up and where the younger families are ... and where we're going to need to look at adding that fourth traditional high school," he said.

Sioux Falls' public high schools form a geographic arc around the city. Washington High, downtown for most of past century, moved to its new home in 1992 at Sixth and Sycamore in the city's northeast corner. Lincoln opened in 1965-66 at 41st and Cliff in the southeast. Roosevelt opened in the southwest, at 41st and Sertoma, in 1991. They each have about 2,000 students and last year were the three biggest schools in South Dakota.

High growth expected in northwest area

A fourth school in the northwest would extend the arc. Some of that area, while inside city limits, seeps into neighboring Tri-Valley and West Central school districts. But the Sioux Falls district covers a vast part of that area as well, west of Interstate 29 and north of 12th Street. It's an area of change, with future housing, University Center, a new I-90 exit at Marion Road, a new Walmart last week and, starting Monday, the new McGovern Middle School. Another high school nearby would make sense, Alberty said.

Alberty said he and Homan aren't so far apart. She's looking at the modest 1.1 percent annual growth the next five years alongside the district's emphasis on nontraditional student pathways that relieve pressure on traditional schools. He's looking at rooftops in new neighborhoods. In any case, the school board has had no preliminary discussion yet concerning a fourth school or a land purchase or what would be a $30 million decision to build it.

Pam Homan. superintendent of the Sioux Falls School District, talks about how the district does not need a fourth high school at this time. Roosevelt High School Principal Tim Hazlett talks about getting ready for the school year which starts Monday.

Enrollment in other cities in the region

There's no tipping point where schools automatically become too big, Alberty said. But the notion of a right size for a high school is a topic where communities are all over the map. Minneapolis has seven public high schools, all smaller than those in Sioux Falls. Omaha also has seven, with its biggest at 2,392. Fargo, with half the K-12 enrollment of Sioux Falls, has three public high schools, also half the size.

"I like to have a school at 1,100 to 1,200," said Andy Dahlen, principal at Fargo North, where enrollment is 932. "When it's lower it gets more difficult to offer all the electives that kids want ... and when you get too large, kids kind of get lost in the shuffle."

Bryan Goodwin, chief operating officer for the Colorado-based Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning, said some research recommends 600 to 900 as ideal for a high school. Effective schools larger than that adapt with flexible schedules and career-themed academies to create choices. They also innovate to encourage close-knit student subgroups — anything from accelerated classes to marching band — to create a sense of a school within a school.

"In some ways you can make the school feel smaller," Goodwin said from Denver.

Eight public high schools in South Dakota are in that 600 to 900 range, but most fit elsewhere. Rapid City Central and Stevens were at 1,900 and 1,500 last year. Aberdeen Central had 1,209 and Watertown 1,139. Sioux Falls has two middle schools, Memorial and Patrick Henry, above 1,100, and Huron's elementary had 1,043 children last year. Washington High set a standard for large with 2,925 in grades 10-12 at the old downtown school in 1964-65, the year before Lincoln opened. O'Gorman, a Sioux Falls Catholic school, has 707 this fall and Sioux Falls Christian 268 in grades 9-12.

"I don't think there's a magic number," said Mary Stadick Smith, director of operations and information at the Department of Education.

Homan is sure of it. Research offers no useful consensus on an ideal size, she said. Sioux Falls' approach will put grades 9-12 in six locations Monday — the three traditional schools and three alternatives.

Alternative schools also absorb growth

One alternative is New Technology High, which opened in 2010 next to Southeast Technical Institute and now has 284 students in a projects-based curriculum. Another is the Career and Technical Education academy, or CTE, also opening in 2010, also near Southeast Tech. It will have 875 students this fall. Most are enrolled at Washington, Lincoln, Roosevelt or New Tech and come to CTE two hours a day for career-based learning. Another group is the at-risk and Joe Foss alternative cohort, which attends class in the Axtell Park building.

The CTE academy has room for 1,000 students. The current group of 875 includes 247 from the Parker, Tea, Baltic, Canton, Garretson, Harrisburg, Tri-Valley and West Central districts. Sioux Falls students would have priority on those slots should the need arise. New Tech High also has room to grow.

"Not each child learns in the same way, same time, same space," Homan said. "Even if we had decided we needed a fourth high school, was it right to put in a fourth high school that is a traditional setting vs. opening up doors for students to succeed through the academy, through New Tech High, through expanded offerings at Joe Foss?"

This arrangement is more flexible, she said, one in which "we're just really excited about how we can provide for each child."

S.F. public school enrollment

A look at how enrollment has increased in elementary, middle and high schools since 2010 and projected numbers until 2019.

Sponsored by

Elementary

Middle School

High School

Enrollment

Year

S.F. School District

The importance of enrollment count

Enrollment bounces among three or four different numbers. Roosevelt High is listed at 2,159 on the state website, biggest in South Dakota and a number from the last school year.

The district projects Roosevelt at 1,978 for the coming year, based on its assessment of data. Another figure comes from Tim Hazlett, the principal, who estimated last week he would have 2,100 when the doors open Monday. And then there's the number that matters, the head count in late September that determines state aid.

There's a method behind the variation. The number of students does fall between opening day and the September head count as no-shows are removed from the books. For its assessment, the school district uses the local birth rate and city growth plans. That can lead to anomalies, such as the 122-student gap between Hazlett's estimate for Roosevelt and the district's. The district keeps its projections conservative, spokeswoman DeeAnn Konrad said. But enrollment does swing up and down. The district has 1,600 students in both grades 9 and 12 this year, but only 1,300 in grades 10 and 11. "That's just a bubble that happens," Konrad said.

Schools adjust accordingly.

"As students come in, we try to build a community that's welcoming and makes them feel we're concerned about their academics ... and try to get them in the right positions to be successful," Hazlett said.

Technical advances drawing much of the attention have had a secondary benefit of freeing up school space at Roosevelt, Hazlett said. The school still offers introductory welding, automotive and wood shop classes, but when advanced classes moved to CTE, that opened space at Roosevelt. The same occurred when the district began supplying each student with a Chromebook laptop. The Chromebooks reduced the need for computer labs, so Roosevelt converted two of its five labs to classrooms for biology and English. Likewise, when CTE students leave for part of the day, that cuts traffic at school.

A lot of people still are in the halls.

"It takes a lot of teamwork and a lot of planning," Hazlett said.

Sioux Falls public schoolsEnrollment in elementary,middle and high school grades

Sources: Omaha count in December 2013, Fargo in May, Minneapolis in June. North merges with North Academy this year in Minneapolis.

South Dakota's largest public high schools

Enrollment, fall 2013 for 2013-14 school year

• Sioux Falls Roosevelt: 2,159

• Sioux Falls Washington: 2,031

• Sioux Falls Lincoln: 1,946

• Rapid City Central: 1,891

• Rapid City Stevens: 1,526

• Aberdeen Central: 1,209

• Watertown: 1,139

• Brandon Valley: 976

• Yankton: 889

• Brookings: 863

• Pierre Riggs: 821

• Mitchell: 774

• Sturgis Brown: 695

• Douglas: 689

• Huron: 686

• Harrisburg: 626

Source: South Dakota Department of Education

By Patrick Anderson

panderson@argusleader.com

Rroni Basha acknowledges that Roosevelt High School is huge.

He and fellow senior Edin Cardona, both 17, led a tour of the school for incoming freshmen Wednesday during an open house.

Most classes are grouped by subject in the school's wings, Basha said, as he guided a group of seven freshmen through the building. Back-to-back classes in different subjects mean rushing from one side of the building to the other between periods.

Cardona said he wasn't worried about his newest schoolmates causing more of a commotion.

"I don't think it's going to bother anybody at all," Cardona said.

Weaving through Roosevelt's sprawling network of science, math, art, music and specialty classrooms left its mark on 14-year-old, Haley Rames, who begins her first day of high school Monday.

Rames and Watkins are accustomed to crowds from their days at Memorial Middle School. They said they're happy to be joining others from other middle schools. Neither is worried about making new friends.

"Now that you're going to be at the same school, it's like we're all rooting for the same team," Watkins said.